DIY Birthday Party Decorations
Make your party pop with these easy-to-make decorations

To properly celebrate an occasion as special as you or your loved one’s birthday, you’ll want decorations that stand out a bit more from what you would buy off the shelf at your local party supplies store. These DIY party decorations will add a handcrafted touch to your celebration that will make the center of attention feel all the more special.

Say Cheese

A great way to decorate a birthday party is to adorn the walls with pictures of the person being celebrated. You can take the idea even further by taking inspiration from Louisa Kopp of the blog Ice Cream Off Paper Plates, who used pictures of her son’s face as cupcake toppers. Rather than using one picture over and over again, you can print off and cut out different images of the birthday boy or girl at different times in their life and in different moods.

Upgrade a classic

A birthday party just isn’t complete without balloons, which are practically mandatory at any big-time celebration. If you want to put a personalized twist on the tried and true balloon bouquet, Camille Styles suggests tying ribbons of various colors, lengths and textures to helium balloons for a more colorful and stylish arrangement.

If you want to do something even more memorable with your balloons, consider filling them with glitter or confetti. This is a fairly easy process, and the result is well worth any effort you’ll expend. For an additional twist, set it up to where partygoers pop glitter-filled balloons when all of the candles are blown out on the birthday cake. Just make sure you put down a tarp beneath the balloons to make clean up easier.

Tie it together

Instead of streamers, try your hand at creating an unexpected, yet beautiful string of garland. Garland is incredibly versatile — it can be used to draw attention to the table where gifts are placed, hung over the entrance to welcome visitors or used to make your dining area look more festive. Garland is fairly easy to make — HGTV’s Kim Stoegbauer recommends making a tassel garland that only requires a ribbon or cord, tissue paper and a pair of scissors. You need only cut the tissue paper into fringe with the scissors, hang the tassels from the cord, and string the cord over the desired area.

Break out the paint

Flowers in vases make for great decoration for a party, particularly if the person celebrating a birthday was a spring or summer baby. You can amplify the effect of using flowers as decoration with a touch of do-it-yourself flair. Ashley Stock of Little Miss Momma paired flowers and hand-painted mason jars and bottles to create an eye-catching design. The insides of the bottles and jars were painted with varying shades of blue acrylic paint, and flowers were added to each container once the glasses were completely coated and dried. You could coordinate these centerpieces to match your birthday party color scheme or keep them all the same for a unified, classic look.

You can opt for store-bought decor in most party situations and nobody would be any bit the wiser. However, if you are celebrating the birthday of someone exceptionally special and you want to put together a party they’ll remember for years to come, consider putting your own touch on the proceedings with these and other DIY decorations.

This article is presented by Colonial Volkswagen of Medford in Medford, Massachusetts.